A great big THANK YOU to Helen, John & Kay Crump for making this adventure possible.
28 April 2014 Landed in Queenstown and picked up the Toyota Surf we bought online, met John and Kay Crump in town and did a food shop with them then drove on around Lake Wakatipu to the rental house in the heart of Glenorchy. Kids are very excited to see snow on the mountains and all the other new things to see, the house is great and it’s such a pleasure to just be here - one of the jewels of New Zealand, and the world. Looking forward to spending more time here, exploring with the family and painting with John.
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Copyright Š 2014 Richard Robinson Studio. All rights reserved. Published by Richard Robinson Studio ISBN 978-1-312-24542-6 Distributed by Lulu
"Glenorchy Harbour" 17x11.5" Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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9 May After 12 days here in Glenorchy, painters paradise, I’ve finally managed to get a painting done! The first week was great weather - sunshine galore - the last of the Autumn colour and the first of the snow (perfect!), but it was school holidays so we were busy exploring and having fun - jumping in the lake etc (for all of 4 seconds). Then the weather was terrible for a few days, but TODAY I managed to sneak this painting in. So good to get the paints out!
As is usual for the first painting back, quite slappy, lots of vibrant colour - a bit heavy handed but very enjoyable. I was trying to make the most of the backlighting which gave me strong colour in the trees and sharp highlights on the boats and distant water. Notice that the light shapes I used on the boat help explain the boat’s shape more than what was actually happening. Good fun. (except for the frozen fingers).
“Glenorchy Evening” 12x12” Oil on Canvas Plein Air (through a window) View Online Auction
13 May There are not too many houses with a view like this out the bedroom window. We’re very lucky to be staying here. The photo above is taken in the morning. I love the sunlit mountains but especially love the mystery (mistery! hehe) of the mid-ground. We’ve seen this a number of times in the morning and I’ve been wanting to paint it, so when I rushed to the easel to capture the last of the evening light on those same mountains I took the opportunity to fill in the rest of the canvas with the morning mist effect. I was only intending to sketch the mountains but I’m rather glad now that I did finish the canvas. It’s very Glenorchy.
”Last to Fall” 11x11” Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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14 May. Did a little four wheel driving to get to this spot which was fun, and filmed the whole painting too - a nice moment captured. Don’t particularly like this now but had fun getting there, walking around choosing the spot and finally painting it within about one hour. (you can tell). I don’t think I should have included the stump in the foreground which takes the eye away from the centre of interest without adding much to the painting. The foreground is a bit of a jumbled mess too - I should have defined the big shapes (light and dark) better there. The trunks and branches look drawn on top of the tree rather than part of it - should have softened some of those off. The foliage hanging out to the left looks like a dripping lump of candy floss. Onward and upward. Demo Video Available at www.livepaintinglessons.com/workshop32.php
”Other Side of the Lake” 8x15” Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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We drove over a big lumpy paddock to get here with its astounding mountains in the background and spent some time photographing up and down the river’s edge fossicking for the best spot. Tricky settling on a spot because of the blustery cold wind coming down the valley. Stay in the lee of a tree to avoid the wind or get out there for the better view? Get out there of course. The main thing I was trying to do with this painting was attempting to create an overall warm colour scheme, so I traded the blues in the background for some warmer grays and put a little more autumn colour into the trees. The colour idea comes as it often does as a reaction against the strident colour of the previous painting. I really like the effect.
”The View from Paradise” 18.5x12” Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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22 May A beautiful spot down on the Dart Valley. Occasionally a cow would stroll by or some tourists screaming along in the distance aboard the Dart Jet, but otherwise a very peaceful place. As the sun tracked overhead and slowly settled behind the mountains it sent out great shafts of light from the peaks, scouring the riverbed. Absolutely stunning to watch but a real task to paint in any sort of hurry, which it was. Only seconds after the sun ducks behind the peaks the temperature plummets and I start shaking at the easel great for really impressionistic work.
I was focusing on creating a glowing light effect from the sunlit river and the setting sun. You can go either way with the darks in that situation - making them darker and the lights will sparkle against them, or make them lighter and the lights will be have a softer glowing feel. Either way it’s nice to let the darks close to the lights take on the colour of the light - warm yellow light in this case. The photo was taken at the beginning of the session before the sun moved down creating these ‘contre jour’ effects.
”First Snow” 14x14” Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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A few years ago I watched John paint from this location so it was nice to come back here by myself to try my hand at this scene. From this angle the scene pretty much composes itself as you can see. All I did was trim a few trees, age the shed a bit and add a bit more snow. Why is old stuff so great to paint? Love it! Notice that the colour in this is punchier than the previous painting - swinging back the other way after the grayness of the previous painting.
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The plein air piece on the left is the poorer cousin of the more considered studio piece above, though it couldn’t have been done without the former. After seeing the plein air piece John had challenged me to paint without fear. So I did. There’s nothing like repainting a scene to give you a shot of painting bravado. I prefer the new composition because it’s simpler, easier to read from a distance and more dramatic. Perhaps its success is also to do with the fact that I could actually feel my fingers in the warm studio.
”Waiting for Summer” 19x6” Oil on Canvas - Studio
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1 June The first painting of my 30 day challenge where I’ve committed to paint for at least one hour each day for a month. In practice, because I prefer the alla prima approach, that means one painting per day. This one from a photo in Queenstown on the edge of Lake Wakatipu, capturing the very last moments of Winter sun, which is so low in the sky it’s almost like painting at sunset all day down here in the winter.
”Towards the Humboldt Range” 19x6” Oil on Canvas - Studio
2 June.
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Today a reworking of a scene I painted outdoors a week ago but which got somewhat abstracted
on the way home when a bag rolled on it and stuck to it in the back of the truck. You might be noticing a common colour theme through my paintings by now - warm versus cool, orange versus blue. My favorite! One of my favorite colours is the warmth of the golden tussock grasses with the sun shining through it yellow ochre and a touch of white - beautiful! This piece really is a patchwork quilt of a number of elements from the same location - more so than many of my paintings. The rocks, grasses, creek and mountains, they were all there, they just hadn’t organised themselves very well.
”Kawarau Gorge” 13.5x13.5” Oil on Canvas - Studio
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3 June.
This is a study for a client who wants more Autumn colour in this sort of scene so although we missed the last of the golden leaves it’s not too difficult to add it back in if you’ve painted a few autumn trees previously. They’re really just semi opaque soft edged puff balls. The light filtering through their leaves becomes very yellow and raises the value and temperature of their shadow side, each leaf like a stained glass window.
“Crump Valley” 16.5x14” Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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4 June
Painting up here looking down on John’s house with the weather coming in fast, it sure put the pressure on. I decided early on to move the pyramidal Mount Alfred to centre stage, but I regret it now because it’s such an odd shaped mountain (actually the end of a mountain range) that it draws the eye away from the centre of interest which is the invented light falling across the river vallery. I’m happy with the drama of the scene overall though - it’s hard to beat strong sunlight backed by inclement weather.
“Autumn Gold” 8x13.5” Oil on Canvas - Studio
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5 June Here’s another go at painting this scene looking up the Rees Valley I’d painted plein air on the 4th of May. This time I was more interested in producing a really impressionistic feel with the brushwork, inspired by the work of Russian painter Sergei Bongart. I like what he said about finishing a painting - that it’s finished when the artist feels he has expressed what he wanted to express, not when every blade of grass or every leaf has been painted.
”A Remarkable Evening” 13x14” Oil on Canvas - Plein
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6 June.
While the kids were at dance class I managed to nip down to the edge of Lake Wakatipu and paint
this with the last of the evening light. These mountains are “The Remarkables�, always a wonder to look up at from anywhere in Queenstown. With this one I was really just trying to paint what I was seeing without too many changes. I did invent the spotlight in the foreground trees and lost some of the blue from the sky though. This was one of those scenes that just got better and better where I wish I could just pause time for a while to capture the subtlest effects of last dramatic rays of sunlight.
“While the All Blacks Played” 8x8” Oil on Canvas
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”Cello” 9.5x15” Oil on Paper
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I was just about to paint another still life of oranges and apples when I saw my Cello leaning in the corner of the studio. I’d always wanted to paint it and now seemed like the perfect opportunity so I set a spotlight on it and searched around for a canvas. Oh no! I’d run out of canvas! All I had was this piece of thick art paper Helen had found me a few days ago. It was late at night, so rather than driving up the hill to borrow some canvas from John I set to work stretching the paper onto board and sketched it up with my brush. Immediately I could tell there was going to be trouble. With no gesso or primer on the paper the paint was absorbed immediately into the surface, making every brushstroke ardous, like nails on a blackboard. Several times I nearly gave up in dispair but I’m glad I kept at it. Note to self - get more canvas.
”Snowed In” 20x10” Oil on Canvas - Studio
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26 May Sometimes you strike it lucky and a scene comes pre-packed, ready to paint. Well, almost. There’s always something to fiddle with. With this one I followed John’s advice and brought the truck over in front of the building to make the truck more dominant, rather than splitting the scene into two focal points. Also changed the light direction to cast a shadow and make the building more interesting. Full of good ideas that Mr. Crump. Kind of glad I didn’t paint this one in situ as it’s a pretty cold spot tucked behind some trees in deep snow. There’s an old clinker boat covered in snow just to the left on this section too - a real gold mine for painters.
“Riverton” 12x13” Oil on Canvas - Studio
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“Paradise” 21x12.5” Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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13 June A beautiful day today - not a cloud in the sky all day. We headed up to Paradise and painted to our hearts content. John Speedy joined us too. Again John Crump helped with a key comment close to the finish - I had a big green tree on the left there I’d been battling with which looked like a party of sea sponges and John asked me why I’d painted it. ‘Because it’s there!’ I laughed, because my most successful enemy is the tyranny of the real - feeling obligated to paint what’s in front of me. Five minutes later the green sponges were gone and a wintery brown tree had grown in its place - MUCH better! After the boat painting previous to this I was concentrating more here on the shapes which compose a painting. Shape variety above all. For instance no tree is exactly the same shape or size, no edge of mountain exactly parallel to those behind it, no cloud nor sheep cloned. At least, that’s the theory.
”Home Sweet Home” 13x13” Oil on Canvas - Studio
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13 June Had fun painting this last night in the studio from this photo I took in Riverton. Obviously I’ve changed the lighting quite a lot, with the idea of an approaching storm and a spotlit central area. After flipping the painting in photoshop I can see what a bad job I did of the drawing of the barrels in the foreground, which reminds me to keep a mirror handy in the studio for checking the painting in. The main thing I was looking at in this painting was the contrast of thin and thick paint which gives a rough unfinished look that suits the subject. Good fun.
”Better Pastures” 14x7” Oil on Canvas - Plein Air & Studio
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14 June Pretty short for time today so I painted over this previous plein air painting in the studio which had been ‘abstracted’ in the back of the truck on the way home by a stray bag. Normally I hate painting over dry paint, but seeing as this was pretty small I just oiled it up and had fun playing with the colours, especially the shadowed grays in the rocks where I’ve tried to add more colour than was actually there. Those are supposed to be little sheep amongst the grass, so it gives you some indication of the size of these great rocks, scoured from the mountains and left here when the glacier melted away ages past. See the painting I did on the 2nd of June to see what came from this painting - a longer, better designed version.
”Judge and Jury” 13.5x13” Oil on Canvas - Studio
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15 June Quite a spectacular view up the Kawarau Gorge here, and a bit unnerving driving the road around it. My challenge in this painting was to keep some colour in the shadowed sides of the gorge, which required raising the value slightly and leaving the darkest accents till the last. The distinctive hills are called the Judge and Jury.
"End of the Trail" 9.5x9.5" Oil on Canvas - Studio
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16 Jun Still battling the gray weather here this week, but Dad’s visiting so we took him and Jill up the hill, up the Rees Valley to this beautiful spot where I’ve painted several times before. It’s magnificent even in these conditions. The photo doesn’t really capture the grand scale of this scene though and I felt like playing with the lighting and colours in the painting. I used a black and white version of the photo to work from so I wasn’t unduly influenced by the colour.
“Chinaman’s Bluff” 10x25” Oil on Canvas - Studio
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June
My reference photo, after a little fiddling in Photoshop to spotlight the focal areas. I was aiming for a dynamic feel with a lot of movement. A great spot where we painted with Kevin MacPherson back in 2011. Lots of sandflies here though!
”Paradise for Kids” Acrylic on Canvas
18 June I spent the day teaching painting to the kids in Dani and Luke’s school class. 21 Kids in all. They were a good bunch, good listeners. The subject was a simplified version of Paradise from 13th June. They learned the grid transfer technique, colour mixing and matching swatches, how to use the brush to get hard or soft edges
and why the colour of the mountains changes in the distance. Great to see them all excited by their finished paintings at the end of the day.
Danielle Robinson
Luke Robinson
”Highlights” 5x12” Oil on Canvas - Studio
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19 June. I was really interested in pushing the colour in this one and also seeing what I could make of the radial ‘crepuscular’ highlights in the fine branches of the willow trees. It’s a very interesting light effect which shows us very clearly the angles at which the strongest highlights occur. Extrapolating the radial highlights further outward we can see how everything in the scene is lit in the same fashion - for instance the rocks on the right have their highlights on the left perpendicular to the sun, but the rocks on the left are highlighted top right, still perpendicular to the sun. I had the best time getting the photos of this - running across the wide grey pan of the Rees River, chasing the sun as mountain’s shadow crept across the valley floor. I stood awestruck in the middle as the sun set. Truly one of the world’s most precious jewels..
”Homestead” 10 x 20” Oil on Canvas - Studio
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21 June Finally got John to explore down this road he hadn’t painted before and came across this great old home with the Mountains towering behind. We both tried to paint a shearing shed in the adjacent field but both ended up wiping them off. Great location though with lots of new material for us both. Looking forward to returning tomorrow! I had real trouble deciding what to do with the colours on the shadowed sides of the house. Initially I painted them in a warm gray but then repainted them in a cool gray with warms reflected from the warm grasses. In the end I think I was trying to be too clever pushing the colour around and should have used a neutral gray instead.
”Hidden Valley” 14 x 13.5” Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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22 June Returned to the new painting spot today. Had fun exploring and taking photos before we finally settled down to paint this view from the ridge. John painted a huge 30x40� while I tried out some new bigger brushes and enjoyed the freedom they gave me to make abstract shapes more easily and cover the canvas much faster. The sun and frost joined forces to make a beautiful soft haze down the valley, obscuring the details in the mountains and making obvious the warm colour of the sunlight. Quite tricky to capture in paint due to the subtleties of it, but I felt we both did pretty well.
”Winter Melt” 18x24” Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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23 June We ventured further into the hidden valley today, driving right to the end where the Dart River curls around the tale of Mount Alfred, continuing its journey from Paradise. We got there early to give ourselves time to explore. The frost covered valley glittered with the rainbow colours of a billion tiny prisms as the shadow of Mount Alfred slowly retreated, leaving ice half an inch thick over the shallow pools dotting the plain. Helen joined us as we broke off pieces of ice and shattered them on a frozen pond, the shards tinkling as they skittered away. Pure magic.
The painting itself was larger than I’m usually comfortable painting en plein air but with the help of my new large brushes it was a real joy instead of a struggle, although it did take five hours to complete. I focusing again on trying to ‘paint the shapes rather than the story’, which means creating dynamic abstract shapes within a cohesive design rather than painting only what I was seeing. My guidelines are simply ‘variety’ and ‘unity’.
"Paradise" 13x10.5" Oil on Canvas - Studio.
24 June I've filmed this painting today and am in the middle of editing it as a demo video for this month's online workshop. It’s based on the kids lesson I gave last week but taking it a few steps further. Video Available at www.livepaintinglessons.com/workshop33.php
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”Day’s End, Dart Beach” 8 x 17.5” Oil on Canvas - Studio
25 June Well this poor weather has something going for it after all. I’m really enjoying the combination of plein air work and studio work. Painting outdoors lets you see the true colours in all their subtlety, but it also tends to slave you to those colours because of the persistent thought of ‘hey, why mess with perfection?’, but studio painting releases you from that. You know that the colours in the photo are false so it opens the door wider for interpretation and invention, although there’s still the trap of copying the photo too closely. Tricky business this painting lark. I captured this scene on camera just seconds before the last light left the foreground quite impossible to paint on the spot.
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"The Humboldts" 14x12" Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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26 June Not a bad spot when you can paint this out your back door. It’s impossible to gauge the true size of these mountains until you attempt to climb them. A day’s solid climbing will get you about half way up.
“Skippers” XxX” Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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28 June Well that was the scariest and most fun road I’ve ever been on - the muddy, icy goat track along the crumbling cliffs of Skippers Canyon. Very dodgy, but we all made it to Maori Point and there were five of us painting elbow to elbow on the edge there till the sun left us. This is a study for a commission. The buyer wants the colours of Autumn in the painting so I added those. The big challenge with this was to simplify all the shapes and still retain the grandeur of the scene - something akin to painting the Grand Canyon in the US, although this was comparatively simple.
“Skippers Canyon” 17.5x17.5” Oil on Canvas - Studio
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29 June Painting this scene again, but this time in the studio so I could have more freedom to explore lighting conditions and brushwork etc. Lots of fun with big brushes, the palette knife and lots of paint.
"Winter Light, Glenorchy" 14x35" Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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3 July I had initially blocked in more detail in the snowy mountains on the left but John rightly pointed out that it was distracting from the trees which are the focal area. The act of scraping the detail off and boldly overpainting that area gave me the sense of control over the painting I needed to make more strong decisions throughout the painting as it evolved. Sometimes one act of bravery can lead to a revolution! When you compare the painting to the photograph you can see just how selective I was in choosing the subject for the painting - I really zoomed in on what it was I loved most about the scene.
”Last Light, Mount Alfred” 10x30” Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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5 July We’d eyed this spot so often it was great to finally get to paint it. The wind was up but we managed to tuck into the side of the hill to avoid it somewhat. Windchill is a killer! Another great scene just begging to be painted. It was tricky getting the colours right for the warm glowing area on the left, largely because I was making it up as I couldn’t see anything looking into the glare of the water. I was sorely tempted to highlight the grasses in the foreground but am very glad I kept it restrained to soft shadows as it would have distracted from the glowing water if I had made the grasses any lighter.
“Rees Valley” 12x34" Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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6 July Finally made it up to the Rees Valley after a previous attempt which was foiled by a washed out river crossing at Muddy Creek. The whole family came so it was great to be able to show them this fantastic place I’ve painted before with John. We all had loads of fun playing with the ice on the pools and then got down to business as the sun leaves the valley pretty quickly in winter, which meant we froze a bit as we packed up. I wiped my palette down with water and found that it had turned to ice only a minute later. Brrrr! Again this piece benefitted from the simplification of the distant mountains because the star of the show was really the warm foreground. Using large brushes and my palette knife and loads of paint helped to no end in creating the gestural brushwork.
“Last Light on the Bucklerburn” 21x23” Oil on Canvas - Plein Air
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7 July As Helen and Luke caught a trout at the lake’s edge I painted here with John and Scott, our last painting session together for the year. This painting is probably the most abstract piece I’ve done here which I feel great about as I’ve been trying to ‘paint the shapes rather than the story’, so it’s good to see progress towards that goal. What does that mean? Just that I’m trying to get away from being so constrained by the scene in front of me, to be able to make a painting where the relationships of shapes, colours, edges, and textures are beautiful things by themselves, but they happen to create a beautiful scene as well. The abstract qualities come first, the story second. I feel that whenever I put the reality of the scene first, I do that to the detriment of the painting. Excluding the mountain tops from this design helped to push the scene towards abstraction, as did painting everything as large colour masses. While the sun sank behind the mountains we finished up and warmed ourselves around the camp fire with spritzers and toasted marshmellows. Such a good time with great friends, and so many golden moments along the trail.
Happy Painting!
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